Author
Topic: Forum nostalgia (Read 971 times)

Hey guys. First of all, sorry if I don't express myself well. I understand english perfectly, but it's hard for me to write it.

I'm a nostalgic dude, and in a weird way. I love forums, but it makes me sad to see dead forums, with messages from 10 years ago or more, and I start thinking about shit like "what was it like to be in this forum?" and other sad stuff.

BUT THEN, I found this amazing forum, and holy pantaloons, it's alive since 2000 and it will keep going as far as Berserk goes, and maybe more!. And that is amazing to me.

SO, I want to take this opportunity to ask you all about this community. I will leave you some questions below, but feel free to join the nostalgia train and talk about the time you've been here.

1) How did you get to this forum?2) Do you have some funny/interesting anecdotes?3) Do you miss another user that is not in the forum anymore?4) Do you miss something in particular of the old days regarding forum stuff? (Idk how to express it...Maybe you miss a chatbox or an old forum style)5) Did you make friendships here that go beyond the forum? I mean, if someday when Berserk ends and this forum closes or you just leave, would you keep in touch with someone you met here?

These are all my questions that I can think of. But as I said, feel free to talk about more things regarding this nostalgia thing.

I'm really sorry if this is a crappy post, I'm not sure if someone will understand why it's a little important for me. Don't judge me

Nice thread idea Mr. Fancypants! Sometimes it's fun to remember the good ole days, and I have many pleasant recollections regarding this forum. Here are my answers to your questions:

1) How did you get to this forum?I think I had just been searching around for a Berserk forum after starting the manga waaay back in 2005. Lurked around for a while and eventually joined up. Twelve years later, here we are.

2) Do you have some funny/interesting anecdotes?

Following my participation in the Ladies of SK.net calendar (which is a fun story in itself), the user Handsome Rakshas PMed me, asking me to send him the Rakshas mask I'd made. I tried to explain to him that the mask was nothing fancy, and just made out of printer paper, but he really seemed adamant about getting one. He did this at least twice, but he never sent me his address.

Back in the days of the Flash chat, Walter or Aaz or Griffith would sometimes let loose the chat bot Mecha Xech. It was apparently a reference to a much-hated troll user named Xechnao, but I didn't know that at the time. We would have so much fun trying to run circles around Mecha Xech, who would try to keep up with our conversations with it. When it got confused, it would fall back on its favorite phrase, "Enough about that, let's talk about my dress!" - a saying that I still use to this day.

3) Do you miss another user that is not in the forum anymore?There are times that I've gone back to old threads and wondered what happened to certain people. There are people who I never had a chance to talk to like theSkyTraveller, or folks that I wish were still around, like CnC, Handsome Rakshas, Serpico, SaiyajinnoOuji... Sarah of Borg, where are you?

4) Do you miss something in particular of the old days regarding forum stuff? (Idk how to express it...Maybe you miss a chatbox or an old forum style)As glitchy and unpredictable as it was, the old Flash chat was where it was AT back in 2006. The summer of 2006 was really where I think I truly fell in love with the forum and the people here. Discord is nice too, but I haven't been hanging out in there for a while. I guess I should give it another try!

And of course, anyone who knows me from back in the day knows that I was all about the old oekaki. That was a sort of chatroom in itself, and at one point I think I was spending 4-5 hours a week just on Berserk oekakis. Again, it was based on Flash and had its share of glitches, but it was a special place and holds many a fond memory for me. Shoutout to Lith for saving all my old doodlies!

In general, the forum used to feel like a much smaller place. Now, the forum has grown with Berserk's notoriety, and while that isn't a bad thing, it's harder to get to know people unless they post enough to really stand out.

5) Did you make friendships here that go beyond the forum?You betcha. I married one!

I mean, if someday when Berserk ends and this forum closes or you just leave, would you keep in touch with someone you met here?I would try to stick around here as long as I possibly could. You guys can't get rid of me! That said, I think we'd all somehow end up hanging around in the Berserk subreddit if SK.net truly were no more.

I started Skullknight.NET's forum after the original US-based Berserk forum, Black Sun Over Midland, stopped being updated regularly around 2000. There weren't many of us back then, a few dozen active members? Of them, the only ones from those days that are still active are myself and Griffith.

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2) Do you have some funny/interesting anecdotes?

Boy... there are a lot. I'll share one though. Before Shootin' The Breeze, there was another general forum with ~6 years worth of accumulated posts (a few thousand). As a joke, and as kind of a social experiment, I announced that everyone had admin priveleges for that section only. They could edit posts, move posts, whatever they could imagine! It was a free-for-all. I thought it would be exciting to see what people would do. But what actually happened was super obvious and lame. Everything just got deleted. Nothing really fun about that. I should have seen that one coming...

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3) Do you miss another user that is not in the forum anymore?

Sure, lots of people have come and gone over the years. Apart from BSOM's creator, Skull Knight (affectionately known as Skully), who I did track down a decade or so ago, I probably miss CnC more than the others. He was another BSOM guy, and did some amazing colorings of the manga art, and was a professional artist himself. And like Grail, I also miss TheSkyTraveller.

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4) Do you miss something in particular of the old days regarding forum stuff? (Idk how to express it...Maybe you miss a chatbox or an old forum style)

Not really. At the time I really enjoyed the immense activity back in 2003-2005. But I was young and had more time. These days, I can't engage in threads to that level. And I've grown to enjoy the slower, more deliberate pace of threads these days.

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5) Did you make friendships here that go beyond the forum? I mean, if someday when Berserk ends and this forum closes or you just leave, would you keep in touch with someone you met here?

Yep, I talk to Aaz every day. Flew to visit him and Puella in Paris a decade ago. I also met up with Griffith to watch X-Men 2 (still the best!). Berserk ending won't stop our conversations.

Via BSOM (though I think I posted to both first simultaneously), via Berserk, via a high school friend recommending it and loaning me VCDs with chinese subs! I think the first time I saw it subbed in English was in some very classy Realplayer files.

I'll go with a couple that haven't been mentioned yet: Ranemaka, who was quite active in the scene back in the day with his own translation site I did some (bad) graphic work for, but whose legacy is now probably starting the youtube thread. Also, because I obviously have a soft spot for renegades with hearts of gold and no one else will say so, Werealmad.

5) Did you make friendships here that go beyond the forum? I mean, if someday when Berserk ends and this forum closes or you just leave, would you keep in touch with someone you met here?

Yep, there's a few members I've talked to beyond the purview of Berserk and the board (IncantatioN, VH Bob, Olivier once or twice). Most prominently, as Wally said, we (and Cronus, add him on the missed list =) hung out for a couple days back east (saw X2, talked about life at the park, went to a party, I dressed stupid, etc), and we (him, me and Aaz) used to converse all the time well beyond Berserk. Unfortunately, I just don't spend much time chatting with anyone anymore save for this place. Also, among my regrets is that I had an opportunity to meet Aaz, Grail, Gobs, and Dar Link when Aaz was in the bay area on business but I couldn't make the trip for... personal reasons (let's just say I'll cite this in my divorce papers if it ever comes to it =). Sorry guys, and especially Aaz who I hope didn't take it personally that I couldn't bridge the last 300 miles when he came 5,500. >_<